Aces, Deuces, and the Suicide King
by lorcan
Summary: In which House devises a game around a diagnosis and the team must manage with only the hand dealt to them. Complete. No new team.
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

ACES, DEUCES, & THE SUICIDE KING

* * *

They were all such good poker players now.

Cameron had learned the rules once, at some point before her residency, like she learned everything else – painstakingly, her technical proficiency good but her inability to conceal emotions standing her in poor stead. Foreman had a good poker face but had never liked card games – exposed to them late and without the patience to sit out other peoples' poor decisions when he knew better himself. Chase, too, had the studiously bland look of a man concealing his intellect until he had gauged his opponents', both in life and at cards. He, however, like Foreman, usually had other interests: in his case, the women and the occasional martini to be found in conjunction with the casino atmosphere.

That was before. Before Chase traded in Melbourne's sunshine, Cameron the pristine ethics of the Mayo Clinic, and Foreman the solid greenbacks of the west coast, for the icy winters, questionable morals, and smaller salaries of Princeton, New Jersey.

Before deadly puzzles and HIV scares and _everybody lies_. Before parents were lost and patients were killed and mistakes were made. Before Cuddy's half-ass attempts, and Vogler's suffocating attempts, and Tritter's terrifying attempts, at control.

In short, before House.

And now, four years later, they could play poker. Now Cameron could smile sweetly even as she depressed the plunger of a morphine-filled syringe. Her innocent face no longer played emotions like a movie screen, just a mixed sort of smile some thought compassionate and others found sad. Chase, a truly fine doctor disguised by accent and indifference, caught between the country that colored his speech and the one that was home to the woman he loved. He had found a focus now to go with his straight expression, a maturity than belied entirely his altarboy looks. Foreman would play for the satisfaction of showing others their own errors. At best, he was a harder man, a more impatient man, less cutthroat but concerned now about the disease and not the person with it. At worst, he might be nearly everything the others had accused.

Poker was a metaphor for life, of course, but sometimes it was also real. A perennial favorite, the casino-style fundraiser where all the staff who cleaned up well turned out in their best to dazzle the moneyed stiffs, Cuddy turned the usual charm all the way up to "vamp" and House was dragged kicking and screaming when he could be found at all. The three fellows were usually responsible for making sure he behaved himself once he'd finished his tantrum, and that generally required the finding or inventing of a case requiring his immediate attention anywhere but the fundraising venue.

This time, Foreman was keeping his eye on their boss while Cameron posed prettily for potential investors. Chase had already done his bit with the accent and was now cleaning up at a card table. The losers grumbled, but knew the man worked for House, after all, so the money would probably buy much-needed alcohol to dull the body blows his boss dealt him.

Scraps of card jargon drifted around, games in various stages of play. _One eyed jacks and the man with the axe…._Two of the four jacks were in profile, showing only one eye, and the King of Diamonds carried an axe instead of a sword. It was a trump, a hard combination to acquire, but a winning one._ Deuces, aces, one-eyed faces…._Something similar, the one-eyed jacks, the aces, and twos._ Suicide King wild…._The Suicide King: three of the kings had swords, but only the King of Hearts was apparently sticking it into his own head. Something poetic about that notion, the Suicide King. The face cards all represented real people at one time, but Chase didn't know who. Foreman neither knew nor cared. Cameron probably knew, but she was laughing widely with a donor, one eye towards House. Chase had an eye that way himself; it was a hard habit to break. _One-eyed faces…_

House, of course, would be the Suicide King. In one way or another, destroying himself a piece at a time, because the last best way to conquer the random poor hand life had dealt him was to take control of how the game ended.

All poetic of course. All metaphor. But, like the game that night, not all was metaphor. Miraculously, they did find a patient before House's misbehavior gave Cuddy an apoplexy, before Chase had bankrupted every last resident, and before Foreman drank himself into a Housian plane of philosophy.

TBC...

* * *

AN: Short chapters for easy reading. Feedback welcome.


	2. Chapter 2

_All poetic of course. All metaphor. But, occasionally, life mirrors art. Miraculously, they did find a patient before House's misbehavior gave Cuddy an apoplexy, before Chase had bankrupted every last resident, and before Foreman drank himself into a Housian plane of philosophy._

* * *

Three fans of cards, twelve in all, were arranged in front of him. Most had been written on in magic marker.

"Charlemagne, King David of the Bible, Julius Caesar, and Alexander the Great." House held up the four kings – Hearts, Spades, Diamonds, and Clubs. "Clearly, I am the King of Diamonds. Or possibly the King of Clubs," he mused for effect.

"I'd go with the Diamonds, Caesar was assassinated by his advisors." Chase muttered through his teeth. House ignored the comment, an indicator that it carried a worthy level of snark.

"Jacks were originally servants, not princes, so that makes Cameron the Jack of Hearts and Chase the Jack of Clubs. He's one that symbolizes Judas," House faked a stage whisper, and if the characterization stung, Chase's poker face never flickered.

"The Jack of Clubs also symbolizes Lancelot," Cameron pointed out reasonably.

"Leave it to her to know that," Foreman sighed.

"Don't worry, Foreman, you're one of Charlemagne's knights. Of course that's not really 'cause the Jack of Spades is important, it's 'cause he's black."

"And looking over his shoulder?" _If you can't beat 'em, join 'em._ Besides, House wasn't really talking to them, he was performing for his own entertainment, and if they waited him out they'd know why.

"Let's see, Queens are…oh the queens aren't important, just the Queen of Spades. She's the "Bedpost Queen," and I think we all know who that is!" How he had timed that part of his speech for the exact moment Cuddy walked in to check on their progress none of them would ever know, but the three fellows were not the only ones who had learned a more stolid demeanor from their years with House, and the Dean of Medicine provided merely the obligatory eye roll.

"House, have you- are those playing cards? I couldn't get you to play with the Vice President of Medicom when you had no work, but now you'll play in your office instead of seeing a patient?"

House was writing on the remaining cards, and looked as though he had to quickly swallow a pun on the word "play" as she continued without giving in a moment to put a word in.

"This man has been seen at two other hospitals and they sent him here specifically for you four. See if you can make it worth their while. Or at least yours, or I'll send the Medicom guy _and_ his _mother_ up here for their next hand of blackjack."

Cuddy knew by now which strings to pull to make the reluctant puppet dance – or limp – and the three younger doctors all ducked their heads or feigned interest in some mundane object to avoid meeting her significant gaze. They felt its weight all the same, however, and would eventually goad or deceive their boss into working.

"Alright, it's either gamble up here while we do doctor stuff or gamble down there with boring rich people, so in honor of Cuddy's soon-to-be-indignant ass we're going to make this a little more interesting. Texas Hold 'Em – five community cards, you can use any three to complete your hand…." House had limped through to the office and was taping playing cards to his whiteboard. Four had the name of a test scrawled across them: MRI, LP, Blood Culture, Tox Screen, and the fifth read "Something Outrageous."

"Wait, are we playing poker with the _diagnosis_? House, this isn't a game, he could die!" Cameron, predictably.

"He _will_ die if we miss something because of arbitrary rules," Chase's observation was non-committal; a statement of fact rather than an indictment. He was good at poker, after all.

"Winner takes…oh, winner takes something _really_ cool. Worst loser does _all_ our clinic hours. And Wilson's. Two cards each," a slender-fingered hand extended the remainder, face down. "You'll have to draw your own. Hard to deal with only one hand," he observed acidly.

Cameron, looking doubtful, slid the top two cards off the deck. "Patient History" and "renal failure."

Foreman reached across her to take his: "splenomegaly" and "break into his house."

Chase grabbed the last two left, which said "first idiot treated for meningitis" and "you're going to lose." Annoyed, he looked up. "Ah, come on, did you guys get two symptoms?"

"That would be telling," Foreman smirked.

"Alright, you can use any combination of your cards and these to make five. Five cards equals a diagnosis. No treating without proving to the rest of us why you're right. Go."

"Aren't you supposed to bet in Texas Hold 'Em?" Foreman asked, hoping to make a little money.

"Oh trust me, there'll be betting." House assured him. "This is going to be the most popular game in the hospital. Now get out."

Chase and Foreman were satisfied by this arrangement, or at least no more disgusted by it than their usual arrangements; Cameron, of course, was scandalized. The men doubted House would actually let them kill a patient just to satisfy the rules of his own personal game, or figured House already knew what was wrong with him and merely wanted to annoy them and Cuddy. Cameron planned to go to Cuddy at the first opportunity, but had to get far enough ahead of the boys that she had time to waste doing it.

"Seriously, did you guys get symptoms or what, because my card just says is 'I'm gonna lose'." Chase complained in the hallway.

"I've got a symptom and apparently I get to take his history. Guess that means you two can't." Cameron told him. This didn't go over well.

"How are we supposed to diagnose without knowing where he's been, what he's been exposed to?" Foreman, realizing even as he spoke that one of his cards would allow him to learn at least some of that.

"Well, one useless card, guess that means I get to run four tests…" Chase mused. They descended en masse on their patient, Cameron with pen in hand, Foreman reading vital signs, and Chase leaning back against the window, hands shoved into his pockets. He did have a modicum of professionalism; he wasn't going to run just any random, painful test, so he'd have to observe for a bit to see what his options were. _I wonder if we can bet on ourselves. Or against ourselves._

* * *

AN: Last paragraph of previous chapter at the top for people to keep track of the story. The bit about who the cards represent it true, though the Jack of Clubs actually represents Judas Maccabeus (leader of a BC revolt against an emperor oppressing Judaism), not Judas Iscariot (who turned Jesus over to the Romans), but House would be one to twist a metaphor to his own purposes. Thank you to the two who reviewed. All input is most welcome. Sorry for the one clunky sentence, I try to hit homers but sometimes I end up with a double. I fixed it for you up top.


	3. Chapter 3

_"Well, one useless card, guess that means I get to run four tests…" Chase mused. They descended en masse on their patient, Cameron with pen in hand, Foreman reading vital signs, and Chase leaning back against the window, hands shoved into his pockets. He did have a modicum of professionalism; he wasn't going to run just any random, painful test, so he'd have to observe for a bit to see what his options were. _I wonder if we can bet on ourselves. Or against ourselves.

* * *

"Mr. Callahan, I'd like to ask you a few questions – Mr. Callahan? Sir?" Cameron looked up from her file to discover the man in the bed had not so much as turned his head. He was watching Foreman adjust his IV drip and paid no attention to Cameron.

"Foreman, he's not responding…" Her voice held a question, because the patient was feverish and clearly in some discomfort, but still alert.

"Mr. Callahan?" Foreman tried. No response, although the man's eyes now tracked them both and he wore what seemed to be a pleasant expression beneath his illness.

Chase, across the room, was watching closely. _Now __this__ might interesting_.

"He's deaf." Chase broke in suddenly. Capable, when he chose to be, of intuitive leaps the others rarely made, he had been watching Callahan's head shift from Cameron's face to Foreman's as each spoke in turn, helpful expression changing to one of growing frustration. Both doctors turned, surprised.

"He's deaf, he can't read your lips from that angle. Sit him up."

Cameron moved to the end of his bed, and wrote in round capital letters on a legal pad: "_MR. CALLAHAN?_"

The patient nodded against his pillow.

'How long have you been deaf, sir?' Cameron wrote. There was no notation in the chart – a symptom or a clerical error?

A wan smile from the man in the bed. When he spoke, his voice was low and fuzzy, the S's sibilant and the question ending flat like Chase's sometimes did. _"I am deaf since I am five. I read some lips but do you have ASL interpreter?"_

It was late at night; they could probably have one by mid-morning, but, despite the patient's lucidity and friendly demeanor, he was sick enough that by then his condition, whatever it was, might be irreversible or have done too much damage.

It took Cameron considerably longer to get her standard history; Callahan could read her lips but the legal pad still saw considerable use, since the questions and answers both tended to be fairly lengthy. When the other two asked questions related to how he felt, he understood Foreman almost as well; Chase he could not seem to read.

"Must be the accent, lemme see that paper," the Aussie shrugged apologetically and took a pen from his pocket.

According to Cameron's private notes, Callahan had been deaf since the age of five, the result of mumps. His parents had been amongst the last batch of flower children who didn't believe in immunizations. Without an MMR, their son had contracted what was a mild if increasingly uncommon childhood ailment, and suffered one of its fairly rare complications. At his level of hearing loss, hearing aids were ineffective, and the cochlear implant had not yet been mainstreamed. All medically fascinating but, unfortunately, diagnostically irrelevant, since Mr. Callahan had been deaf for twenty-six of his thirty-three years but had only been seriously ill for the last three days.

Back in the conference room, House was more interested in the entertainment to be had from the patient's deafness than he was about what might be wrong with him. A bonus, as well, another thing to mock dropped so unexpectedly in his lap.

"Don't any of you know sign language? Cameron? Girls always know that stuff."

"I, uh, know the alphabet, but it's faster to just write it out. We called for an interpreter but they can't get anyone out this late and they're already short-staffed. Maybe by tomorrow afternoon…"

"Don't suppose it's any use asking if you boys know anything?"

Foreman's expression indicated that it was not, but Chase looked offended. "Hey, I know the alphabet too!"

House was actually distracted by this. "Really?"

"Sure, they taught us that in school. It's just…the Australian one."

"Great, he speaks _two_ foreign languages. Just keep writing everything down. How's everyone doing? Ready to start taking my river cards?" House gestured towards the board with his cane.

Cameron made a face but was less out of sorts now that she had a considerable list of third world countries the patient had recently visited. Apparently he worked for a non-profit, something to do with building schools, but what that meant for her was a nice possibility of a tropical disease contracted in Malaysia, Burkina Faso, Sudan, or South America.

"His vitals are a mess," Foreman put in. "He seems like a nice enough guy," a shrug here, _too bad_, "but he's got a fever of 104, he won't be any kind of guy much longer if his brain cooks off."

"Then I guess you'd better start testing," House observed drily. "So far Cameron's the favorite to win."

Foreman bristled visibly, his competitive streak piqued. Chase narrowed his eyes but considered the cards on the board. His sole scrap of information indicated that the patient had at least presented initially with meningitis-like symptoms. Those didn't fit automatically with the jaundice they were all privy to, since it was hard to disguise a man turning yellow. His testing options were pretty standard, except for that "something outrageous" one, which pleased him immensely. Any good intensivist loved a complicated, invasive test.

From what he could tell, they were playing with the twelve face cards. Two cards each plus five on the board was only eleven, so House must have kept one back. His own pair were both queens. The goal of this game was a correct diagnosis, but the goal of poker was the best hand; with any luck he could combine the two.

"I'm going to do a blood culture," Cameron announced, while Chase was still pondering the most favorable combination of tests to give him both the highest hand and the clearest picture.

"Why?" House demanded. She opened her mouth, hesitated, and bent to whisper in his ear. To House's credit, he kept it together when he heard the word "ebola."

"Seriously?" He looked halfway suspicious, halfway impressed. House didn't usually allow his fellows the privilege of seeing him impressed, it gave them too much confidence.

By way of answer, Cameron showed him the neat list of countries in her cheerleader script. House considered this.

"That would be _so_ cool. Do it and if he does have it….you're all quarantined."

Immediately Foreman and Chase were clamoring to know what she suspected.

"Don't worry, I'll tell you if it's important," she told them in a slightly patronizing tone. They were still gaping like fishes when House demanded to know what Foreman was going to do.

"I'm gonna break into his house, do an LP and an MRI to check out his liver."

"What's the LP for?" Chase wanted to know.

"For whatever's on this card." The neurologist held up his splenomegaly with its back facing the other doctors. Chase rolled his eyes and folded his arms across his chest.

"I knew you couldn't go a day without a little B&E. Or was that S&M? I forget. Chase?" House, of course.

Chase, who had very little useful to go on since his non-symptom card didn't let him collect any information, shrugged. "Too early to say."

"Suit yourself, you'll just end up doing clinic hours. Cameron, Foreman, go do your thing. Dr. Chase, I expect you to be more interesting next time we meet." The three fellows trouped out again, Foreman grabbing his jacket on the way.

Cuddy, in the doorway, gave House her standard 'I wish you weren't right so often so I could actually yell at you' look. "What is going on in here? You're limiting the information they're allowed to collect? And are those the only tests they're allowed to do? House, you do know what's wrong with him, don't you?"

"Haven't looked at him yet. Relax – actually, don't, your breasts almost fall out when you cross your arms like that."

Cuddy dropped her arms and glared. "Texas Hold 'Em with a _patient_, House, really?"

A pause, then a sigh, a quick glance into the hallway, and: "Who's the favorite?"

"Wilson already put a hundred on Cameron, she got the patient history. Almost not fair to the rest of them. I was actually hoping Foreman would get it, he's terrible at them and he wouldn't know what to do with the information once he got it."

Cuddy considered and produced a bill apparently from thin air. House kicked himself for having blinked when she reached into the top of her little black dress. "Give me fifty on Chase. I've seen him play poker, he counts cards."

The look of surprise on House's face was almost worth the lapse in ethics.

* * *

AN: Nobody's reviewing so I hope that just means there's not much wrong with it. My medicine is as accurate as possible throughout this fic. All diseases and symptoms actually exist. My medicine is better than my poker, so allow some leeway in House's invented game.


	4. Chapter 4

_Cuddy considered and produced a bill apparently from thin air. House kicked himself for having blinked when she reached into the top of her little black dress. "Give me fifty on Chase. I've seen him play poker, he counts cards."_

_The look of surprise on House's face was almost worth the lapse in ethics._

* * *

On the way to the lab, Chase tried to play the boyfriend card.

"Cameron, if you were in danger of infection from a patient, I would tell you, game or no game. This is important. What do you think he has?"

Cameron, unintimidated by her five inch deficit, looked up at him and smiled one of her sweet smiles that made his stomach flip over. "Nice try. But if I have to call the CDC I promise to tell you first. Well, maybe after Cuddy." She left him there, disgruntled, to shove his hands in his pockets and walk back to the conference room to indulge in a few minutes of sulking before considering what very little he knew.

Over at Callahan's house, Foreman was managing to fill in a few gaps in his own knowledge of the patient. No one moves through life without collecting things – bills, memories, trinkets, habits. House collected information, Wilson collected people. Cameron collected – what? He'd bet it was photographs. Chase collected awkwardly patterned shirts and emotional bruises from his unreachable father figures. Foreman didn't stop to consider what he himself had accumulated, but it would have been walls, adding layers to his armor as he moved from one sphere to the next, always looking to shuck one more piece of his old life as a poor black kid. _Good fences make good neighbors._

Mr. Callahan, apparently, collected an unreasonable amount of paper. Perhaps not so unusual, for a man who would rely more than most on the written word, but he had bulletin boards littered with calendar pages, several tables covered with budget proposals and blueprints, and, in his bedroom, a printer tray with a confirmation for a plane ticket to somewhere in Southeast Asia.

Foreman deduced most of what Cameron had already learned, and in much less time. The man worked for some organization that built schools in underprivileged areas. Of course, in the third world, 'underprivileged' was par for the course, so Foreman knew his patient was working in the places most of the world would consider truly shocking. That gave him any number of parasitic disorders – and, judging from the framed photograph of a visibly healthier Callahan hugging a thin brown child, several African and Asian hemorrhagic disorders. _I'll bet that's what Cameron's testing for, ebola, Crimeo-Congo, hanta virus. If she doesn't call the CDC I can rule those out. If she does, we've got bigger problems_.

With roughly the same information now as Cameron – that is, where their patient had recently visited – it seemed fairly obvious the man had some sort of tropical disease, probably insect or water-borne. _Let Cam cover the hemorrhagics, I'll work on the parasitic ones_. Both types of disease fell more into the immunologist's realm of expertise, but Foreman did appreciate the ritual of testing.

Satisfied with his findings and fairly pleased with himself, Foreman retreated to the hospital to narrow down his possibilities with a lumbar puncture and an MRI, conserving his remaining test for what he might later find.

With Cameron running blood cultures, Foreman working on his spinal tap, and House holed up in Wilson's office taking money from the nurses on which of them would win, Chase was at the disadvantage of lacking patient history. However, as Cuddy had observed, when he played real poker he counted cards, which in most circles was considered cheating, and he didn't see any reason not to play similarly now.

Now, however, instead of reading the other players, he was reading their web histories: namely, Cameron's most recent internet searches. The last four or five were all diseases and climate conditions of Burkina Faso, Malaysia, and the Sudan, and something which had given her a stack of stingray images. Aussies knew their water creatures like they knew their water sports – no, not stingrays, he saw, looking closer, mantas. Unrelated to the case, he sighed, she had searched briefly and efficiently. At least the others gave him a ballpark history – the man traveled, and to places a badly informed or incautious tourist could pick up absolutely anything.

If it were an ordinary disease, the other hospital would have caught it, so it was safe to assume whatever it was would be rarely seen in North America, and possibly rarely seen even in the country from whence it came. So, diseases causing meningitis symptoms and jaundice from various obscure places in Asia and Africa? An iffy incubation time too; he didn't know how recently Callahan had been abroad, but most illnesses that serious didn't take long to present. He began making lists.

Cameron, her blood cultures for all major hemorrhagic fevers negative, was both relieved and back at square one. Well, it _would_ have been interesting to have a case of hanta virus or something, at least that wasn't contagious…._But it was also pretty fatal_, she reminded herself. _Back to the patient_.

The patient, at that moment, was struggling against Foreman's attempts to sedate him. Mr. Callahan was now delirious, his fever rapidly approaching brain damage levels. His shouts had an ill-defined quality, but his hands were painfully expressive, tracing silent symphonies no other musician understood.

"Does he have to wave his hands around like that? Where's that damn interpreter, anyway?" Chase, walking in to find them now both trying to hold a limb still enough to sedate, was unsettled by the stunted sound of Callahan's voice, the sight of his frantic fingers, and the knowledge that he didn't know whether his patient was jolly with fever or screaming in pain. Foreman shrugged.

"Police department borrowed her, apparently law enforcement trumps hospitals."

"He can't help it, Chase, if he were just talking–"

"Then we'd sedate him, keep him quiet til we figured out what's wrong with him." Chase cut off Cameron's objection and ducked his head to avoid the reproach in his girlfriend's eyes.

"We're trying! You could help, you gotta outweigh Cameron by a couple pounds at least!" Foreman retorted. Chase obliged; Callahan wasn't big, but he was stronger by far than the hundred-pound immunologist.

Cameron backed off to glare at Foreman, who was giving her a blank, unimpressed look. _Sorry sweetie, truth hurts. _

"Uh, you guys?" Chase interrupted before Cameron could put her withering expression into words. They both looked his way; still struggling to get a grip on an arm, the intensivist was staring wide-eyed at the man on the bed. Following his gaze they saw Mr. Callahan, speaking too fuzzily to be comprehensible, clawing at his ears and thrashing his head from side to side as if to dislodge something agonizing.

"I think he's hearing something!" Chase looked back at them in alarm.

* * *

AN: I am very grateful to those who reviewed, especially my double-reviewer; it tells me if people are reading. Next update in two or three days.

* * *


	5. Chapter 5

_"Uh, you guys?" Chase interrupted before Cameron could put her withering expression into words. They both looked his way; still struggling to get a grip on an arm, the intensivist was staring wide-eyed at the man on the bed. Following his gaze they saw Mr. Callahan, still speaking too fuzzily to be comprehensible, clawing at his ears and thrashing his head from side to side as if to dislodge something agonizing._

_"I think he's hearing something!" Chase looked back at them in alarm._

* * *

They managed to sedate their patient, and with him whatever was so deeply upsetting to him. With the man quiet but now unhelpful, they filed back to House.

"I _really_ hope Cameron wins. I will be _so_ rich," he remarked to the three discouraged fellows, back at his desk and sorting piles of money. Cameron's was clearly the tallest, followed by Foreman's. Only two people had bet on Chase.

"I can keep his brain from cooking but not much longer," Foreman announced. "He's at 106, and keeps spiking a couple of degrees higher every few hours. I can get it back down, but it takes a little longer every time."

"What the highest his fever can be for the longest period of time before we're working on a vegetable?" House asked.

"108 is the standard cut off for brain damage but I'd like to keep it where it is. He's miserable already, with periods of altered mental status."

"Two degrees before he's a rutabaga, swell. Anyone run any good tests?"

"Blood cultures negative for – uh, anything," Cameron stopped herself revealing what she had tested for but the result told Foreman what he wanted to know.

"LP was negative too, still waiting on that MRI." _Although she just did a huge chunk of my work for me_, _least the guy hasn't got the hanta virus_.

"Chase, anything to add?"

"Haven't tested for anything yet, jaundice could be almost anything."

"Uh, yeah, like _liver failure?_" House said in his _at least two of my fellows went to med school_ voice.

"Liver function's actually only slightly suppressed, he's pretty much just yellow." Cameron had gotten it out of a nurse. Everyone already knew about the jaundice, so it didn't matter if she divulged liver-related information.

Just then four pagers went off. Why each of his three employees needed separate pager tones, House had never understood. It wasn't like you could personalize it like a cell phone ring, surely all piercing beeps were equal before the gods of annoyance.

"Mr. Callahan just crashed –" Cameron was already on her way to the door but was stopped by the cane extended across her chest.

"_I_ will go see what's wrong with the patient. Then one of _you _may trade in a card for _my_ knowledge. Provided you haven't already used them both." He gimped off at a fair clip, that twisting walk he assumed when in a hurry, leaving his department to wait.

"You know, at most casinos, the house wins over sixty percent of the time in any one game. I don't think our House is going to be any different. He's probably set us all up," Foreman's assessment combined his newfound cynicism with the latent frustration of being told he was an idiot twelve times a day for four years.

"He hasn't, I was here while he was taking money from some of the nurses. He bet on us, therefore, he doesn't know the answer," Chase neglected to mention he'd overhead that while snooping on Cameron's internet searches.

"He doesn't know the answer?!" Cameron was horrified. "Mr. Callahan could die! If House doesn't know what's wrong with him, then he's really letting his life hang on this game!"

"Who'd he bet on?" Foreman interrupted. _Priorities._

"Cameron."

Horror at knowing her patient could lose his life was now surpassed by terror of realizing House would lose money – and take out both on her.

House came back, a playing card in hand. The twelfth and last face card, Chase assumed. "Brand new symptom, hot off the presses. Who hasn't used both their cards yet? Cameron took the history and Foreman already did his home invasion bit…Chase?"

Chase grinned, a dimple showing in one cheek. "Nope. My card just says I'm going to lose." He snapped the card from House's extended fingers. The king of hearts, and on it was written _hemolytic anemia_.

"Christ, this guy's sicker than we thought!"

"Wait, Foreman and I aren't allowed to know what's wrong with him now?" Cameron demanded of their boss, increasingly incensed.

"Sorry, House rules." He smiled smugly at his own pun. He'd been waiting all evening to use it.

Hemolytic anemia, meningial symptoms, and hot third world nations gave Chase a slightly fuller picture. _Is the anemi'er a symptom or the disease?_ Time to burn a card and run a test?

"Also, the man can hear." Foreman added, the most intriguing new symptom previously lost in the scramble for pagers.

"Hear, or thinks he can hear?" House squinted. An anomaly, perhaps a promising one.

"What causes _hearing_ in a deaf man?" Cameron leafed helplessly through her notes.

"Not just deaf, _profoundly_ deaf," Foreman corrected. "He can't hear anything under 120 decibels. A rock concert would sound like very faint static to him. And his brain doesn't process sound from his auditory nerve, that means he's _not_ actually hearing anything. It can only be tinnitus, that's more like a buzzing or a squealing, and it _is_ a neurological symptom."

_Neurological symptoms indicate brain issues_ _– could be a brain tumor, autoimmune. Wouldn't account for the systemic failures though, unless it was so far advanced the perineal plastic syndrome had completely overrun him, and there would have been other signs before now._ A collective thought they all came up with in various degrees. Cameron didn't like it - prognoses for such disorders were almost universally poor - but Foreman brightened at the prospect of something falling under his own specialty.

House sighed. He hated when no one could spontaneously connect all the dots for a brilliant spot diagnosis. "Alright then, keep testing. Chase, you've got three tests left, Cameron and Foreman, two each. No pressure, but some of you have a lot of money on you.

"Get lost, I've got to talk to my bookie."

In the hallway they had to stumble past a growing line of various staff members with bills in their hands. House had put on a green visor.

* * *

AN: Spectral Scribe is my hero for being so encouraging. I love that people are trying to guess who wins. To the reviewer who commented on the card counting bit, upon further research, you are correct that it is considered cheating (and for that matter is used) only in blackjack. I apologise for the inaccuracy; it was a critical plot device or I would go back and write it out for you. I only knew it is usually prohibited, it didn't occur to me that it was only used in one game. I assure you, the rest of my work is well-researched, and to the reviewer who commented on my medicine, I'm very glad I am faking it convincingly, one or two things are my own experience but it was mostly heavy research, and as you know, sometimes when you're writing, things come from different places to just fall together. This chapter was a bit short and stagnant but I wrote the entire fic at once and divided it afterwards so this was the best place to end before it takes off again. As always, update in 2-3 days.


	6. Chapter 6

_House sighed. He hated when no one could spontaneously connect all the dots for a brilliant spot diagnosis. "Alright then, keep testing. Chase, you've got three, Cameron and Foreman, two each. No pressure, but some of you have a lot of money on you._

_"Get lost, I've got to talk to my bookie."_

_They had to stumble past a line outside of various staff members with bills in their hands. House had put on a green visor._

* * *

In their various rooms, all three doctors soon came to the same conclusion: _Tropical diseases just don't box kidneys. And __nothing__ causes spontaneous hearing in a deaf man_.

Foreman was frustrated. He had come up with three possible diagnoses, none of which he had any great faith in. Babesiosis, a tick-borne disease occasionally causing high fevers, had the benefit of also producing hemolytic anemia, though he didn't know that was significant. Dengue only caused the fevers, but was incredibly common to tropical, mosquito-infested regions. Leptospirosis, currently his favorite, caused fever and jaundice. It also, unfortunately, caused liver failure to go with the jaundice, and their patient hadn't given him that. _Yet_, he reminded himself.

Cameron had also arrived at leptospirosis as a possible diagnosis, and had briefly considered HIV before her blood culture ruled that out as well. Brucellosis was a possibility, which would explain his neurological symptoms, but it was more common to the Middle East, and he'd most recently visited Africa and South America.

Chase finally caved and did a tox screen, not because he thought it would be especially useful, but because it was written on a king. There was another king on the communal board, the "something outrageous" test, plus the one he already had, which meant he was on track to win, provided no one else could actually diagnose the patient.

The tox screen, true to expectation, was not fascinating, especially since they had already gunked up his blood with a lot of their own medicines. Foreman's MRI gave him no indication of the cause of the splenic swelling, so he was down two tests. Cameron ran a tox screen as well, not bothering to read it before asking Chase,

"Anything good come up in this?"

"Nah, just what we put in him. Why'd you run that if you didn't think it would tell you anything?"

"Because my other two choices were something outrageous and an LP. I don't have any outrageous ideas, and I'm not about to give some poor guy another spinal tap just to win a game."

Chase shrugged. _Fair enough_. He also thought it could be leptospirosis or brucellosis, but the hearing was bothering him. Tinnitus wasn't a result of a parasite or a virus, it was a result of noise exposure or, very occasionally of – he sat up suddenly, eyes wide. He dashed from the room, leaving Foreman and Cameron staring after him. She flipped through the papers he left behind – several print outs of tropical diseases, and a photograph of a manta ray printed from a website. _Was he reading my searches?_

"Uh, should we have followed him?" Foreman asked, when the other man didn't immediately reappear. Before Cameron could answer the door opened, a familiar clatter on the glass heralding the arrival of someone who walked with a wooden implement.

"We call this part the showdown. Where all the players have to show their cards. Where's Chase?"

"Right here," the Aussie spoke from behind him, face lit up beneath his fair hair.

If House was startled, he didn't show it. He replaced the green visor on his head and brought quite a pile of money into the conference room. Cameron gulped.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, well, Lady and Gentleman, Dr. Chase has called your bets. So turn 'em over."

"I didn't finish all my tests…." Cameron protested.

"Doesn't matter, you've been called. You've all been cheating anyway, use one of Foreman's – I know you know the results."

Cameron blushed; she had deduced the reverse of what Foreman had learned earlier – they would get similar information about the patient from both his history and his home, so he would know she suspected a hemorrhagic disease first. Since the CDC was not locking them into glass rooms, she hadn't found one, therefore he would test for other diseases that could impair neurological or liver function. Any neurological condition expressed in cervical-spinal fluid was also dangerous, i.e. meningitis, and since they weren't all on vancomycin, he hadn't found anything either.

"Come on, come on, let's see who wins," House ordered.

Cameron pulled two cards from her bra. House did a doubletake and Chase sat down to hide a sudden tightening of his trousers.

"I changed my mind. Let's just see that again."

"One of them would have just picked my pocket," she defended herself. Foreman didn't disagree; he'd considered it but hadn't been desperate enough yet.

"I got the patient history and renal failure. History indicated extensive time spent in tropical and third world countries, but almost no tropical disease explains the kidney failure."

Chase smiled. House looked suspiciously at him. "Wait your turn. Cameron, your tests?"

"A tox screen and a blood culture…plus I know Foreman didn't get anything good with his LP."

"Lay 'em down, little lady," House affected a Texan drawl and wondered if his intensivist would ever actually call him out for hitting on his girlfriend. The man's thermostat was just set too low.

Cameron showed a pair of jacks – her original cards – plus a king for tox screen, a queen for the blood culture, and another jack for Foreman's LP results.

"Three of a kind, respectable, but only if you got the diagnosis to go with it."

"Brucellosis comes closest. It accounts for most of his symptoms, plus he was in the Middle East four months ago and brucellosis can remain dormant for months or years before manifesting itself."

House weighed this. "'Comes closest'? Columbus thought his calculations 'came closest' and he ended up wiping out the Arawaks. Wrong. How do you explain the tinnitus?"

Cameron looked helpless. The two men exchanged glances at House's cockeyed analogy, Chase biting down a defence of the Caribbean natives who were very like the Aborigines of his homeland.

"I thought so. And you even knew he was treated for meningitis from his history, shame, I thought you went to medical school. Foreman, let's see it."

"A negative LP and an MRI that showed me what I already knew, that his spleen was enlarged. My search of the patient's home told me he traveled to Africa and Asia, and Cameron _not_ freaking out over her blood culture told me it wasn't ebola or anything else hemorrhagic."

"_Ebola?_ You thought he had _ebola_ and you didn't tell me?" Chase's jaw dropped, voice hitting a new octave.

"Now kids, let's not fight. A king and two pair queens-and-jacks for Foreman. Doesn't beat three of a kind, sorry, but let's hear the diagnosis anyway."

"Well, I thought it was leptospirosis, but brucellosis does make more sense," the neurologist conceded. He'd been missing the renal failure which would have led him in that direction.

"'Epic fail, dude!'" House affected a gamer's dismayed tone and made a hand gesture that caused Foreman to sink lower in his seat lest any human being with an ounce of actual street cred see him in the same room as his boss.

"Neither one of you went to medical school. Chase? You've been looking like you swallowed the canary for the last twenty minutes, care to share?"

"Full house," Chase announced as he dug three cards from his pocket. "Kings over queens. Tox screen, hemolytic anemia, and something outrageous, previous treatment for meningitis, and this one that says 'you're gonna lose' but is still a queen, I believe."

House looked at him narrowly.

"He had hemolytic anemia?!" Cameron's eyes were wide. "But –"

"Oh relax, I treated him," House waved her words away. Wilson and Cuddy,

standing in the doorway, exchanged glances.

"Did you know he could have had ebola?" Wilson whispered.

"I'm going to save that for the next time I need leverage," Cuddy whispered back.

"And what did you do that's outrageous?" House asked skeptically, a little suspicious now that was Chase who won, the most dependable, least predictable of the three. Foreman and Cameron would have stayed within the rules of his arbitrary game, something outrageous would still have been a medical test, but Chase's was the sense of humor with the bite to it, though he contented himself with only laughing at House's jokes, rarely venturing his own.

Chase sat back and crossed his arms over his chest with a self-satisfied expression. "I know what's wrong with the guy."

"And it's not brucellosis?" Foreman clarified. Chase shook his head.

"Not brucellosis, or leptospirosis either. I –"

"That's not outrageous. I was hoping for something really spectacular. Cuddy-jumping-out-of-a-cake-spectacular."

"Maybe for your birthday." The Dean of Medicine rolled her eyes in the doorway, and House pulled a face.

"It's outrageous. I just won a stack of money betting on myself, plus the guy woulda died if I didn't just treat him, he's got Carrion's Disease," Chase added.

"Bartonellosis? But that's carried by sandflies in cool climates, he hasn't been anywhere cool, only the tropics and the desert. It also wouldn't account for the kidney failure _or_ the tinnitus," Foreman, having already lost to Cameron, wasn't about to come in third.

"But meningitis treatment does. Some idiot screwed up, gave him too much vancomycin, it boxed his kidneys and gave him ototoxicity. If he'd been a hearing patient, he would have noticed going deaf right away, but since he was already deaf-"

"He didn't notice til the tinnitus kicked him, damn." Foreman conceded the battle, though perhaps not the war.

"But like Foreman said, everywhere he went was hot," Cameron didn't want to lose either.

"Not everywhere." Chase held up his picture of the manta ray. "I thought this was unrelated to the case, but you really did search 'Manta.' It's a fishing village in South America. It's a beach, so it's hotter than the mountains there, but the water comes from Anta'tica, keeps it just cool enough."

He set the picture down and picked up the small square whiteboard on which it read, in his neat capitals, "_WHEN WERE YOU IN ECUADOR?_"

"He was in Manta three weeks ago, perfect gestation time. I already started treatment." This last part designed to ward off Cuddy, who knew as well as the rest of the diagnostic department that Carrion's was fatal in 90 percent of untreated cases, and would have descended upon House in full wrath for letting the diagnosis of a potentially deadly disease ride on his bastardized card game.

House had schooled himself into a neutral expression. Chase had solved more cases than the other two; he shouldn't have been surprised, though he'd deliberately handicapped the younger doctor. What he was less pleased about, however, was the amount of money he'd just lost – and only two people had won.

"Hey House – pay up." Cuddy failed utterly to keep the grin out of her voice. He handed over a considerable sum with an agonized expression.

"And mine, boss," Chase grinned, hand also held out. "And I believe Foreman is doing my clinic hours?"

Foreman's head thunked dully on the glass tabletop as he lay it down in despair. "And Cameron's, and House's, and Wilson's."

Wilson's head came around from where he had been watching Cuddy count her money and her cleavage fight to escape her dress.

"You're making the loser do _my_ clinic hours?"

"You gonna let me off?" Foreman said, his voice muffled by the table.

"Well, I mean, a bet's a bet, I don't think I can alter the terms of the game…." Wilson wasn't about to look a gifthorse in the mouth. He didn't often initiate schemes, but he invariably went along with them. The customary protest was usually just to soothe Cuddy and his own conscience before he took unholy glee in his friend's antics.

House paid out the remainder of his money with poor grace and Foreman, slumped in his chair, wore a very similar expression. Cuddy had already filed away all shades of offences in her mental rolodex for future use and looked relaxed and delighted, an aura that suited her. After all, she was having a good evening: a fundraiser going smashingly, the pleasant warmth of self-confidence in her veins, her maverick doctor momentarily humbled and her maverick doctor's patient mending. She tucked her roll of bills away and moved from the doorway, a sign the little gathering was over.

* * *

AN: Well done to everyone who figured out Chase would win! One last short wrap-up chapter after this, thank you to everyone who's been following along...


	7. Chapter 7

_House paid out the remainder of his money with poor grace and Foreman, slumped in his chair, wore a very similar expression. Cuddy had already filed away all shades of offences in her mental rolodex for future use and looked relaxed and delighted, but after all, she was having a good evening: a fundraiser going smashingly, the pleasant warmth of self-confidence in her veins, her maverick doctor humbled and her maverick doctor's patient mending. She tucked her roll of bills away and moved from the doorway, a sign the little gathering was over._

* * *

House she wouldn't expect to return downstairs; he'd probably reached his limit of acceptable behavior for one evening, but the other four doctors knew their cue when they saw it. Time for Foreman to resume his pensive seat below, Cameron to illuminate her special smile, Chase to put on the extra Aussie; time again to sing for their proverbial suppers. All this because it was these games with false rules, played with ceremony at tables with fifty-two cards or fifteen balls or a red and black wheel, that people understood, and not the games that doctors played more clumsily but more frequently with chemicals and hypodermic needles and giant magnets.

To men like House, who appreciate the irony of a public interest in invented games and a total ignorance of the real gamble of life, to those of an abstract, metaphorical bent, people are very much like games of chance. Given the scenario that night, men were in fact like poker hands. Foreman, like Cuddy, like Wilson, is a virtual guarantee of a win. Such a win is too easy for House, however; it lacks the finesse of skill, of daring. Gained from luck of the cards dealt, it is in life the fortune of having a good brain and a workoholic's drive, rather than the higher panache of bluffing or cheating. Cameron and Chase, are less predictable because their compasses can point so many directions, and slightly more skill is needed. They are partially luck, too, the luck of being intelligent, attractive people, but can only help win if played strategically in the right combination with other cards. Because they are wild, there are choices about how best to arrange them; within the person this equates to choices about how to allocate mental and emotional resources, choices about which path to take – some will be victory; others, a weak hand and an empty pocket. And, of course, there is House himself, the only one of his kind in the deck. A bit of tradition and a bit of triumph for him, requiring equal measures luck and skill to wield.

The games played at tables had ended for a time, though never those played in diagnostic departments. Sometimes even a promising hand can lose, because Death has superior timing or a better hand still, but sometimes the ingenuity of a player can result in a surprising conclusion. No matter the player, there will be times when they take all with a wide grin, and times when they are left with nothing, and always, always at the end of the game, there will be debts to settle. So it would be no different for the aces, the deuces, and the Suicide King.

* * *

AN: Sorry I left this end dangling so long, went out of town and forgot I hadn't posted the last chapter. Probably could have just left it as it was at chapter six but thought it needed more closure. Thanks to my readers! Might be a little while before another story because I need some new material but I'm not gone for good.


End file.
